Quotes on Freedom and the Great American Experiment

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I sincerely believe that the greatest threat facing America and the world today comes from radical Islam. The longer we deny this simple fact, the longer we worry about what others think of our non politically correct beliefs, the longer we do nothing, the greater the threat grows. Soon we will be left with no choice but to bide the end.

There is a radical Islamist war against America and our allies. It would be helpful if President Obama had found time in his speech tonight to explain to the American people how we are going to win this war. Giving a speech in isolation about our military operations in Afghanistan without explaining how it connects with a larger strategy for winning the war against radical Islamists does not help Americans understand what it will take to provide for the security of the American people. ~ New Gingrich June23, 2012

P.S We are at war with radical Islamists – and it is a war we are losing! ~ Newt Gingrich

On this date in 1863, the most famous speech in American history was delivered at the Soldiers’ National Cemetery in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.

These immortal words of freedom need no further introduction:

“Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation, so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate, we can not consecrate, we can not hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.” ~ Abraham Lincoln

I just noticed a random tweet go across my screen. It said only “Basically America supports war.” I don’t know what point that person was trying to make, or what exactly would even bring that up, but there it was in my face for me to think about.

But having seen that tweet my mind went instantly to a memory of a quote by John Stuart Mill. A quote I think is an eternal truth. A quote I think is highly relevant to the world we live in today and a quote that is definitely worthy to be called “Words of Freedom”.

“War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.” ~ John Stuart Mill

While chatting with a co-working in pretty yellow dress a few minutes ago I showed her a photo of a yellow ice cream shop that I had just put on our Modern Traveling Blog. The co-worker told me she had been to that small town and actually bought another yellow dress there a few years ago. She went on to explain that she felt bad for buying the dress as the shop was full of rainbow flags and banners that read “no war”. She expressed remorse for “supporting people like that.”

Impressing me beyond her years she then went on to say that war is a horrible thing but that there is something worse, and she spoke about the families who have lost a loved one oversees and now live with grief and loss every day.

This of course brought my mind right back to these famous words of John Stewart Mill, who, though not an American, has by his love of liberty earned his place in history and this little blog.

“War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.” — John Stewart Mill